During the Twelfth As One
by FlipWise
Summary: Sequel to As OneIt's Christmas time. A time for families to all come together and share this happy and joyous occasion. The Curtis brothers and their families are back in Tulsa as one again this time bringing in new family...and keeping others out.


During the Twelfth As One

By: FlipWise

I Do Not own any characters from the book, The Outsiders.

_Dear, Sarah_

_Hey Sarah, sorry I couldn't make it to your Christmas dinner this year. I really would have liked to come but my dad says we gotta go visit our uncle and cousins for Christmas. He's anxious to go and I don't mind my uncles it's just my cousin I told you about. I just hope that I don't have to room with him again. Anyway, I just wanted to send you this letter tell everyone that I'll see them after the holidays. Probably when school starts again. See you later._

_Love,_

_Gregory Curtis_

It's a lot colder outside than usual. Days seem a lot shorter when the darkness fills the air around six o' clock or so. But wherever there's darkness, there's light; especially around this season. Bright lights illuminated nearly every corner and where there were houses, the light seemed to cover them like the inside of ant beds.

This was evident to Ponyboy Curtis as he and his son Gregory drove through the night on their way to the original Curtis household. They hadn't been back here in at least four months, as Gregory had school starting which required them to take themselves back to Philadelphia. As the fourteen year old looked at the all the decoration put around the households, his father was trying to keep driving straight while his stomach was twisting. He couldn't wait to see his brothers again.

Darry and his family had been doing well. They had sent charges against Pamela's ex-boyfriend and after the police arrested him, they found an unregistered gun in his possession, which resulted in him doing some time in prison. Darry and his wife, Lisa, never found out how much time he did and really didn't let themselves be bothered by it. All they wanted was their daughter to be safe.

Sodapop on the other hand had fully recovered from his previous accident. Since then, he and his step-son Willie had been spending time together and according to Soda, he was a lot more open than ever. This felt good to his youngest brother hoping that their children wouldn't get in a fight again.

Before the father and son duo knew it, they were driving past the lot where Ponyboy and his friends would hang out occasionally. There were a few teenagers out there around a fire barrel trying to warm them up. That put a smile on Pony's face as he remembered when Steve, Two-Bit, and Dallas were trying to smoke in the dead of winter, but would end up running back inside within less than a minute.

The Honda Civic they were driving in front of the house. He had looked for Darry's van and concluded that he and Lisa hadn't arrived yet. He learned at their previous visit that they only used this van for traveling. He actually had a muscle car that he had planned to show to Steve if he ever got it up here.

Each pulling two bags out of the car, they walked up to the front door; Pony with his suitcase and briefcase and Gregory with a backpack and his own suitcase. After a three knocks the door was opened by Willie who saw his family and then yelled,

"Soda! They're here!"

Almost instantly, Soda came from the back of the house and greeted both his younger brother and nephew with a bear hug. Both had smiles on their faces as Pony always had Sodapop to talk to when he was younger and Gregory starting to grow fond of his fun-loving attitude.

But then, to Gregory's surprise, Willie, asked,

"How you been, Gregory?"

Greg was slightly startled at the question but quickly answered,

"Fine…and you?"

"I'm cool. You can go ahead and put your stuff in my room."

Gregory then preceded the room wearing a slightly puzzled face. Willie then walked down the hallway towards the bathroom and then Pony said to his brother,

"Looks like they may be getting along better."

"Yeah. Well, Willie's a bit different now-a-days. Plus I had a little chat with him."

"I did the same with Gregory. Willie seems a bit happy though."

"Well, we actually received some good news this morning."

"What's that?"

"Willie's mom, Karrie, is going to be out of rehab in order to spend Christmas with us!"

"Really! That' great! So I take it she's pretty much cleared up in there?"

"Yup. We talked to her this morning. She's excited and Willie's just as happy."

"I can see. Do you know what time Darry's supposed to be here?"

"Later on tonight. Pamela's out with Zach and his girlfriend right now."

"Zach? Steve's son?"

"Yeah. Pamela and Zach's girl go to the same school, so they used to hang out occasionally. But now they're together more sense that ex-boyfriend of her's is doing time."

"That's good to hear. Do you know how many years he got?"

Sodapop shrugged and sat down in the armchair.

"I didn't bother to get too specific. I think Pam knows, but I didn't want to bother her."

"As long as she's safe then everything should be okay."

"That's what I told Darry. Pam went through a lot with that so I don't think hassling her about something will help."

Pony partly agreed. A thought popped into his head though. Keeping secrets was what got her into the whole mess in the first place. He just shook it off and hoped that Pam learned from her mistakes.

"Hey Pony?"

"Yeah, Soda?"

"I want to make a Christmas themed dinner. What type of meat do you think would look good that's colored green and red?"

Ponyboy couldn't answer that question. All he could do was shake his head and laugh. It felt good to be home.


End file.
